ISUF 2020: CITIES IN THE TWENTY-FIRST CENTURY

A TYPOLOGICAL ENQUIRY INTO THE DEVELOPMENT OF CHINESE GARDEN SUBURB: A CASE IN

Yin Xu, doctoral candidate, the University of Auckland, New Zealand

ABSTRACT Garden suburbs present a prevalent residential form in the urban landscape in the English-speaking world. They derived from early British and American suburban development, featured by a detached or semi-detached house with an outdoor garden in a single plot. From the mid 19th-century, garden suburbs emerged in China as a distinct built form in concessionary areas and treaty port cities. Influenced by modern urban planning, they exhibit unique patterns combining traditional Chinese and Western architecture. A typological enquiry into the development of Chinese garden suburbs can offer a fresh understanding of urban landscape changes in modern China. The idea of typological processes is applied to identify the spatial-temporal manifestations of types so as to understand how residential built forms change over time in Guangzhou. The typological study is fundamental to the formulation of historically-sensitive and placed-based urban development and conservation plans.

Key words: Garden suburb, modern China, typological study, Guangzhou

INTRODUCTION

Garden suburb is a prevalent residential form dominating the urban landscape in a majority part of western countries and their colonies. Contributed by the Garden City Movement, which advocated the decent, healthy and pleasing living environment for the middle class and workers, garden suburb was accepted and reinforced in a series of garden city practices (Stern et al., 2013). Their planning ideologies and physical representatives became models for modern housing in the 20th- century.

China has an urban history extending for more than 3500 years (Dong, 1982; Gaubatz, 1999). From the mid 19th-century, garden suburb emerged in China as a distinct residential form in concessionary areas of port cities, they have unique patterns and features differed from traditional Chinese architectures. According to a preliminary statistic, more than 20 cities have garden suburb constructions in the Republican period (Zhou, 2017). They are valuable resources for understanding early development of urban planning and modernism in China. From 1980s onwards, many garden suburbs have been listed as historical-cultural areas and received conservation or redevelopment (Figure 1).

Figure 1. Garden suburbs in Qingdao (top left), Nanjing (top right), Shanghai (bottom left) and Guangzhou (bottom right).

However, knowledge and literature about the Chinese garden suburb is very limited. Wider and deeper understanding of garden suburb as an international phenomenon in the context of modern China has not yet been mentioned. It is an overlooked topic in the international discussion framework of garden suburb development (Zhou, 2017), and it is arguable that an analytical approach to explore this topic is still lacking (Gu, 2015).

To narrow this gap, the paper suggests a typological examination of the formative process and spatial characters of early garden suburb construction during the Republican period in Guangzhou, China. The approach is built on an evolutionary concept of change, and aims to describe the urban form through a detailed classification of built types (Moudon, 1994). The research findings are fundamental to both conservation and regeneration of Chinese historic garden suburbs.

BACKGROUND

Figure 2 Garden suburbs in Xinhepu, Guangzhou

The connections between China and the West were mostly developed in the second half of the 19th-century. Since the Treaty of Humen in 1843, which legalized the construction of concessionary area for foreign settlements, especially in the five earliest treaty port cities- Shanghai, Guangzhou, Ningbo, Fuzhou and Xiamen, until 1902 there were 24 concessionary areas in 10 Chinese cities (Fei, 1998). Ideologies and methods of western urban planning were introduced and circulated into China at that time.

China experienced fundamental changes from a feudal empire to a modern society in 1911. The Republican government (1911-1949) tried to implement city reconstruction as one way to reboot the country’s economy. The ideas of garden city and modern planning were widely applied into city constructions. New residential form-Chinese garden suburb-were created in this context to provide better living environment for the warlords, senior officials of the National government and overseas Chinese (Sun, 2011; , 2014).

Guangzhou is an ancient city with significant garden suburb constructions in the Republican period. It is the earliest to trade with the West, it develops the culture and Lingnan architecture which have long and lasting influences in every aspect of people’s life. At the beginning of the 20th- -century, the first modern city plan was formulated and implemented in Guangzhou, which set the scene for early garden suburb constructions, many were model residential communities that were expected to create new images of the city and the ruling party. The paper is taking the Xinhepu garden suburb in GZ as an example (Figure 2), to examine the adaption process of this Western residential form in a Chinese context and highlight what they owe to local architectural types.

METHODOLOGY

The paper intends to conduct a typological analysis of the built forms in Xinhepu garden suburb. The method stands at the heart of process typology, which aims to understand the course of urban

2 ISUF 2020 Cities in the Twenty-first Century form change over time. The diachronic examination of built forms helps to grasp the physical legacy from the past and instruct present day practice. Type is the essential concept for intervening and developing. A basic type is identified in terms of its volumetric characteristic, its relation with the street and its solar orientation (Moudon, 1994).

The paper focuses on the utilization of building ground plans to identify building types. The latter is an essential indicator in typological research that help to examine the effect of historical evolution on types. And the concept of typological process is utilized to describe the adaptation of existing building types and the generation of new ones in the transitive urban development period (Caniggia and Maffei, 2001). In so doing, the complexity of the transformation process of garden suburbs in Xinhepu, Guangzhou can be recognized, and empirical sustainable possibilities for future studies can be established.

FINDINGS

The Xinhepu area locates on the south-east side of Dongshan district, used to be the east suburb of the city (Figure 3). Missionary activities were the earliest development impetus in Xinhepu, foreign missioners built the American Baptists church and constructed missionary schools. Overseas Chinese were the second exploitation impetus. Many of them had religions, the church atmosphere in Xinhepu provided a suitable environment so that they could still maintain their religious lifestyle (Liao, 2007). After 1915, the Republican government officials were also attracted by Xinhepu’s beautiful, quiet and exotic environment, they invested lands and houses, and constructed their mansions.

Figure 3. The location of Xinhepu garden suburb (Source: The conservation and regeneration plan of Xinhepu, 2008)

Many red- villas were constructed in Xinhepu at the beginning of the 20th-century, they have small setbacks as gardens, as well as enclosed gateways and flat roofs. Their layouts and architectural features differed at different development stages (Figure 2). Nowadays, the earliest and most well-maintained areas in Xinhepu garden suburb are Guigang area as the first to be exploited, the Qingming Road as the early to be planned, the Xinhepu garden community and Songgangdong area as the agglomeration representatives in later development. The identification and classification of building types is presented as follows (Figure 4):

3 ISUF 2020 Cities in the Twenty-first Century Multi-storey Zhutongwu-type garden house and Qilou: The Guigang area and Qiming road were the earliest to be developed, many buildings still maintain traditional ground plans that inherited from Zhutongwu (Figure 4, A1). The basic plan of a Zhutongwu-type garden house is one jian in width (one room and a corridor, one jian equals to 4 meters), three or more storeys height, limited set back as garden (Figure 4, A2). The width-length ratio is between 1:3 and 1:5.

Qilou is regarded as a combination of indigenous Zhutongwu and western-style facade (Gu et al., 2008). In order to provide shade for pedestrians, on street frontage an arcade or an additional room on the second floor is constructed. In the Guigang area and Qiming Road, a small amount of Qilou as commercial implements were developed (Figure 4, A3).

The Mingziwu-type garden house: Another dominant type is the two-jian garden house. Its interior layout is similar with traditional Mingziwu, which has two rows of rooms, and an internal corridor provides access to flanking rooms on both sides. A standard Mingziwu is sometimes regarded as a pair of Zhutongwus (Lin and Sun, 2004). Thus a Mingziwu-type garden house looks like a doubling of a Zhutongwu-type garden house. A small set back at the plot front is utilized as garden(Figure 4, B1). Both Zhutongwu-type and Mingziwu-type garden house display an early recognition of garden as a necessary element in modern suburb that distinct them from traditional Guangzhou dwellings. A sizable number of Mingziwu-type garden house were constructed in Xinhepu, many of them have the British bay on the front elevation, which can be easily identified both from the building facades and their ground plans (Figure4, B2).

Apartment-type garden house:Traditional multi-storey Zhutongwu, Mingziwu and their deep layout provide possibility for several families living together in one building (Li and Gauthier, 2014). Sometimes a light-well was inserted into the building to help access natural light. This co-living tradition is also reflected by buildings in Xinhepu area. Both horizontal and vertical extension of a Zhutongwu or Mingziwu house led to the emergence of apartment-type building. Inside, several families live independently while sharing the public kitchen and toilet (Figure 4, C1). Sometimes the small light-well is kept to achieve light and help ventilation. Outside, apartments were built as block- shape and some of their external walls were constructed exactly on the boundary of the plot. Outdoor walkways were planned to access the building entrance, in some cases this walkway is enlarged to be a public garden or sport field for the residences (Figure 4, C1 and C2).

The symmetric garden house: The symmetric garden house is a group of two Mingziwu-type or Zhutongwu-type garden house (Figure 4, D1 and D2). It’s a unique building type that in most of the cases it reveals the relationship between original owners, who were supposed to be relatives or very close friends. Those houses are almost the same in floor plans, sitting symmetrically or in the same direction, with tiny differences on the facade.

A variant of the symmetric garden house is a combination of two Mingziwu-type or Zhutongwu-type garden houses. In emphasize, the two houses are not individually standing on the ground, instead they are grouping together by staircase or balcony to form a new kind of apartment. They do not necessarily reflect the owners relationship, instead they are shared by different families. Thus this type of houses can also be categorized as the apartment-type buildings.

The mansion-type garden house:When the plot size increased, and the average length-width ratio of the plot has changed from 1:2 to nearly 1:1 in later stage of development, three-jian garden house were constructed. The floor plan of a three-jian house is actually a widened version of a two- jian Mingziwu. The central corridor of a Mingziwu is extended laterally to be the public space of

4 ISUF 2020 Cities in the Twenty-first Century the family. The living room and the dinning room are arranged on this central place, on both sides are bedrooms (Figure 4, E).

When compare the three-jian garden house in Xinhepu and the traditional Xiguan mansions in the western part of GZ, lots of similarities can be found. Both are three-jian in width, the central space is used as living and dinning room, the sequence of different rooms are placed in the same order. Both of them conform to the symmetric layout and mainly north-south oriented. The biggest difference lies in, garden house has garden outside the building, while the Xiguan mansion has the full-occupied layout and put the light-well inside the house. Thus to some extent, the three-jian garden house in Xinhepu could be regarded as an adaptive type of Xiguan mansion.

Open plan garden house: The above mentioned garden house types in Xinhepu area have more or less similarities with traditional buildings, the earlier to be constructed, the more similar can be observed. There’s one exception, the open plan garden house, learns the least from traditions, and came into being as a great leap in building typology. Their formation demonstrate the evolutionary process of a new building type, which generated from existing types, went through several adaptive steps, and evolved into new building form.

Figure 4. Six types of garden house in Xinhepu, Guangzhou

The open plan garden house is featured by the flexible floor plan that follows unconventional configurations (Figure 4, F1). They’re not confined to the two-jian or three-jian structures, no need to keep the sequential arrangement of rooms, and they even don’t have symmetric facades. Their

5 ISUF 2020 Cities in the Twenty-first Century constructions are contributed by the utilization of frame structure, which provides flexibility for organizing different functions in one building.

Various shapes and sizes of open plan garden houses appeared in Xinhepu garden community and the Songgangdong area (Figure4, F2). Rectangle-shaped, U-shaped, L-shaped or even random-shaped garden houses can be found on large plots, or those irregular plots located on the corner of a street block. Although the layouts of open plan garden house have little in common with traditional buildings and other garden houses in Xinhepu, however they used the same building materials and decorations, they have similar building height and building size, they are north-south oriented, therefore they fit in beautifully with their surroundings.

The interpretation of typological process: Based on the above analyses, the typological process of garden suburbs in Xinhepu area from the late 19th to early 20th-century can be conceptualized. In early stage of development, buildings have lots of traditions in the full-occupied model and one-jian or two-jian width layouts. Not many houses have gardens. Zhutongwu, Qilou and apartment-type garden houses form a high density community. The Mingziwu and mansion-type garden houses emerged with larger size of plots and the official recognition of garden as an essential element in suburb-style construction. Limited set back as garden appeared in an individual plot, the building stands independently surrounded by narrow walkways, north-south oriented with compact floor plans. A few symmetric garden houses were built, in essence they are pairs of Mingziwu-type garden house.

With the increasing size of the plots and the advancement of construction techniques, mansion-type and open plan garden houses became the dominant building types. It’s the development climax in Xinhepu, various types of materials, decorations, and building shapes coexist to display the mature aesthetic and technological aspects of Republican garden suburbs in GZ. Many mansion-type and open plan garden houses have modern Linnan architectural features. It’s obviously that the design trend in Xinhepu garden suburb had gradually shifted from early learning from the West to the later emphasis on local adaptation and integration.

CONCLUSIONS

The examination here is a step forward to a comprehensive understanding of Chinese garden suburbs. By using a typological analysis of garden suburbs in Xinhepu, Guangzhou, China, the physical connections between western origins, local traditions and modern creations have been revealed. Light has been shed on the building types and their typological process. The approach adopted has built on the process typology that recognizes the city and its architecture are products of cultural consensus (Caniggia and Maffei, 2001).

Chinese garden suburbs have gone through a hundred years of history, they are an essential part of China’s modernization and urbanization. Research on their roles in the development of urban modernity and social progress is suggested. What’s more, in the Socialist period, examples of garden suburb are the overseas Chinese communities with Soviet planning characteristics. Both the Republican garden suburbs and the Socialist interpretations have been recognized as historical legacies of the city. Issues of their conservation and regeneration have brought up challenges and opportunities in urban planning and design. Many more studies, inter- and intra-China, are needed if the typological research is concerned to provide comparative and intellectual returns.

6 ISUF 2020 Cities in the Twenty-first Century REFERENCES

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7 ISUF 2020 Cities in the Twenty-first Century CORRESPONDING AUTHOR Yin Xu, Doctoral candidate, School of Architecture and Planning, the University of Auckland, Private Bag 92019, Auckland, New Zealand. [email protected]

8 ISUF 2020 Cities in the Twenty-first Century